The Turtle and the Piranha
Synopsis As there are mysterious murders within the GDG, Drauss is failing to find the killer. But why is there a turtle at every scene of the crime? Who are the Piranhas, and what is meant by "hunger shall devour all"? Plot A soldier is running for his life. He is being pursued by an unseen enemy. But then he is shot dead, and falls to the ground. Blood spills from his mouth. He closes his eyes. But near him, a small strange shape plods past. It is a turtle. It walks past the body. There is shouting nearby. Some soldiers run to the body. "He's dead." "And what is that!" The soldier pointed at the turtle. "It's just an animal, it couldn't kill! Besides, this guy was shot down. Turtles don't carry guns!" But the soldiers looked back, and the turtle was gone. It left behind a trail of slime, but there were words in the slime. Hunger shall devour all. Title sequence ---- "That's two murders within our very own base in the last week! Security has been tripled, although it may not be enough!" Doarle said, pacing up and down the room. "Oh, but it will. Armour has been slightly upgraded, and a post mortem report has been filed, indicating Private Smith was killed by plasma-based weaponry-" Drauss replied. "Anything in our arsenal like that?" Doarle interrupted. "Well, there might be..." "Then every one with access to the weapons should be considered suspects!" "But it's a different type of plasma-" "Maybe, but we shouldn't take chances!" "Doarle, you fail to remember who is really in charge here. Resume your post, I have to evaluate security footage!" Drauss snapped. Doarle nodded, and lumbered out. "There's no one there!" Kairie said, also watching the footage. "Rie, did you get the results?" "Yes darling. There has been no anomaly activity for a week, so it is doubtful that the assailant is from elsewhere." "Never doubt that - 23 years ago, it would be doubtful, but now... anything is possible" "An anomaly before last week, you reckon?" "I don't know. Anyway, what strikes you odd about this?" "The turtle doesn't appear until after he is shot. It seems to come out of nowhere" "Exactly. And to my knowledge, no one on the GDG has access to invisibility devices or anything similar. Which means any GDG employees can be ruled out as suspects" "Aliens?" "I would say so, but why would they attack us?" Drauss pondered. ---- Parallel Gielinor "The anomaly creator has been cleaned, and is now fully operational your highness" a scientist reported to Zell. "Good - I have been robbed of the chance of attacking Drauss for the past week! Sheer torture! There had better be no glitches this time!" Zell sneered in response. "Of course not sir - although one anomaly had opened on a near moon and closed ten minutes later" "That doesn't matter, as long as anything didn't go through!" "Funny you should mention that..." ---- GDG Base "I'm picking up extra-stellar lifeforms on the meter!" Cratus boomed to Drauss. "So, it is aliens who are committing the crimes. Now we have our suspects, we need to catch them. The first step is finding clues, so we venture back to the crime scene" Drauss responded. The slime with the strange message had been swabbed away and put up for analyzing. "Hunger shall devour all... what can that mean?" Drauss muttered. "Could that be a vital clue to the case?" "Maybe, and the troops still haven't found the bearer of bad news, the turtle itself. You could say it just vanished into thin air... even the cameras only caught it once on tape." "Could we trace it?" "It's possible, once we get the results-" "I just heard a ding, so I'd assume we have them right now." A man walked up to them, smiled and delivered the slime and paperwork before dashing off. Drauss poured it into his scanning device and it flashed and beeped. "Online and rolling! Hey, wait a minute!" Cratus ran over and stared at the screen. Unidentified liquid. Cannot be identified. "The files say the same thing virtually! We are really out of our depth!" "Maybe the turtle and the murders aren't connected after all. Perhaps we are dealing with two different cases here" "I certainly hope you're wrong, Cratus." The device started flashing simultaneously and beeping loudly. Something was here. "Raise the alarm! Call for evac! That means everyone except for special operations!" Drauss shouted, and Cratus nodded. After five minutes, the base was clear, leaving only Drauss and his special squad. "Our enemies are invisible, so be extremely cautious! Any sign of the assailants, shoot to kill!" The soldiers split up, and the winding corridors of the base was like a labyrinth. Sweat trickled down each soldier's face, fearing who would die next. There was a scream. Drauss ignored it and pushed on. There was another scream, and Drauss drew out two E-Pistols. Characters *Drauss *Cratus *Kairie *Doarle *Emperor Zell *HuCDomFor Scientist References Roots Turtle